8 teens charged as adults

Absolutely. They're sure as hell old enough to know right from wrong.

Skillet42565 wrote: brihard wrote: Absolutely. They're sure as hell old enough to know right from wrong.

Benjichang wrote: Any link to story?

I dont have the link, but its that story you see all over CNN.

A couple of girls tricked a girl into coming to this girls house to beat Her ass because She was talking <poop> about them on myspace. They beat Her unconscious and filmed it to put it on youtube. When She awoke they kept beating here.


These are the mugshots of those involved/charged



Double Edit:

CNN Story


Edited by Da Hui - 11 April 2008 at 10:21pm

Here

Picking and choosing pretty much makes the whole idea of a juvenile criminal system useless.

Either try all minors as juveniles, or none at all. This cherry-picking when the crime seems bad enough is silly.

The juvenile system IS useless. Hate to break it to you. The ridiculous rates of juvenile recidivism are proof enough of that.

I can't say what does/would work, but it's categorically shown that the current system *doesn't*.

The concept of a 'juvenile' is extremely fuzzy. I'm not saying age shouldn't be taken into account, but it's only fairly recently in western society that 14-18 year olds have been considered anything less than adults. In much of the world they still are.

If a 14 year old in other parts of the world can work and support siblings, I refuse to believe our youth should be so coddled as to absolve them of responsibility. Granted there are many systemic failures of education and socialization at work, but they still made the deliberate decision to commit this act, and they can bear the burden for that decision.

choopie911 wrote: Man Bites Dog wrote: Picking and choosing pretty much makes the whole idea of a juvenile criminal system useless. Either try all minors as juveniles, or none at all. This cherry-picking when the crime seems bad enough is silly. So a 17 year old that opens fire in a crowded mall, and kills police officers should get a lighter sentence than an 18 year old?

Is there a system in place to charge minors differently?

Man Bites Dog wrote: choopie911 wrote: Man Bites Dog wrote: Picking and choosing pretty much makes the whole idea of a juvenile criminal system useless. Either try all minors as juveniles, or none at all. This cherry-picking when the crime seems bad enough is silly. So a 17 year old that opens fire in a crowded mall, and kills police officers should get a lighter sentence than an 18 year old? Is there a system in place to charge minors differently?

Generally not charge, but sentencing is drastically affected. Cases like murder are still going to be pretty clear cut, but 'regular' assault will be prone to some very serious discrepancies in sentencing.

Now, that's not to say the 14 year olds here should be treated with the same severity as the 18 year olds. I imagine it will become very clear who the 'ringleaders' in this whole schmozzle are. But the message still needs to be smacked into their idiot heads that they goofed bad. I'm sure a few of these kids can be 'salvaged' with proper effort.

A lot of factors come into place when charging a juvenile.  People sometimes forget that kids mature at different levels, are raised different, are taught different things, and sometimes not taught anything at all by parents.  These, and other factors is what makes charging juveniles so hard.  The fact is, there will never be a perfect system for juveniles.

These kids knew they where breaking the law.

They didn't care.

They filmed it to look cool.

They deserve to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.